Technology trends, insights and news

December 17, 2009

And, thanks to all who joined us at 463's holiday party in DC last night. We had a great time and even managed to raise more than $3000 for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

And, last but not least, thanks to the current and former journalists who participated in our video above, including Brooks Boliek, Bara Vaida Andrew Noyes, and, wait for it... wait for it... Ms. Helen Thomas.

We never have been good about talking about ourselves, and there is no reason to start chest thumping now, but a few random observations...

Mind the gap. We started 463 because we saw a great gap between Silicon Valley and Washington, DC and thought our collective experiences would serve as an effective bridge. Fortunately, we were right, and we've done quite well, thank you. However, it never ceases to amaze me how much of a gap still exists. Even living, breathing techies in the Obama Administration will tell you the same thing.

Great work. When Tom, Jim and I started 463, we wanted to focus day-to-day on actual client work. We weren't excited about marketing, hiring a bunch of people to do the work for us or pontificating as "PR leaders." We just wanted to work with great clients at a senior level and accomplish stuff during a fascinating time. Fortunately, all of this has come to pass.

Great team. Luckily, we have been able to hire folks over these five years who have shared our same entrepreneurial spirit and, crucially, have been able to put up with the partners. 463 is not for the faint of heart. We have folks who are at the top of their game from a PR, policy and common sense perspective and can also thrive without lots of management. They're an amazing bunch and we're stoked to have them. (Although, they really need to learn how to post to this blog more).

Opportunity. We are of the mind that careers always need to be moving forward and opportunity should always be seized -- even if it means outside of our four walls. One of the best validators for our success is that folks who have left 463 are currently furthering their careers in high-level and important communications positions at places like Yahoo!, Juniper Networks and H-P.

What we really do. Tech policy stuff, right? Yes and no. Tech policy communications is our core and our differentiation. But, the reality is that 463, through client demand and the virtue our collective experience, has organically evolved into a firm that provides senior communications consulting of many forms. This means lots of work creating thought leadership campaigns, reputation management efforts, executive platforms and messaging. We also help some companies take a completely fresh look at their communications programs and help them reshape a smart path forward. Personally, I love doing that.

Thank you. Our clients are obviously essential to our health and our growth. But, we especially thank them for being great partners who can accept often tough/blunt recommendations and who are always striving to do better and create positive impact. Our friends in the media should also be thanked (those of whom that are left). We may have invited you to a few stinker press conferences, but, hopefully, these have been the rare exceptions. And, to our friends -- those in the tech policy world-- and folks like our partners at Next Fifteen, Bite Communications, OutCast Communications and Text 100, thank you all of your support, for coming to our parties and for listening to Tom and Jim tell the same damn jokes over and over again.

Andrew long ago distinguished himself as a fair and earnest reporter in an era where commentary increasingly took the place of objective journalism. From his early days at Washington Internet Daily through his time at National Journal’s publications, he stood out as a guy who truly cared about news. Ironically, he also became a bit of a DC celebrity, being named one of the “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill.” The 463 called for a recount on that, for the record.

Now he moves on to Facebook, and The 463 can only wonder what is left of tech policy journalism. We are gratified that Kim Hart is building a beat for The Hill and stalwarts such as Grant Gross continue to shine a light on the tech industry. Maybe we shouldn’t worry – its not like technology is important to America’s future, right?

But we digress. It’s a time to celebrate Andrew’s big move. So, in that spirit, 463 is holding a happy hour in his honor on Wednesday at 6 pm. Details below, but it should be noted that if you were on Facebook you’d know them already.

Please come out and join us as we salute Andrew and his big career move!

August 05, 2009

Katie Hallen -- Aneesh Chopra received a rock star’s welcome Tuesday night at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., in an event hosted by TechNet, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Churchill Club. For America’s first federal CTO, it was his first visit – and public appearance – in Silicon Valley since President Obama appointed him to office in April.

Chopra, who previously was Virginia’s secretary of technology, had initially been perceived by some in the room as a Silicon Valley outsider, but last night they embraced him as a visionary with big ideas and specific objectives to help the government translate technology to boost U.S. global competitiveness and better engage the citizenry.

Chopra revealed his near-term (next 90 days, by September 22) versus long-term priorities, looking at how government can invest in the building blocks of innovation, promote innovation to achieve national policy goals, and instill a culture of openness and transparency. In particular, he cited his huge support for health care IT, education technology and government R&D investment.

“We need to embrace this spirit of commonwealth – the idea that we can bring the power of entrepreneurship to deliver game-changing innovation in our public services,” said Chopra who peppered his remarks with stories of social entrepreneurs who have inspired him to help technology and the government work better for the American people.

August 03, 2009

Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra will be making his first official trip to Silicon Valley tomorrow. And, if you move fast, there are two ways that you can hear from him.

Tomorrow night, the Churchill Club and 463 clients TechNet and the Center for Democracy & Technology will be hosting Chopra at the Computer History Museum. Tickets are going very fast for this late-breaking event. Registration closes tomorrow morning. Go here for all the details.

And, then on Wednesday, our friends at the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee are holding their annual State of the Net West event at Santa Clara University. Chopra's trip is well-timed. He'll be able to join Congressman Rick Boucher, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Congressman Bob Goodlatte, industry leaders and academics at the event.

July 01, 2009

To many, Washington is presently viewed as a land of hope and despair. Failed industries have come hat in hand to beg policymakers to bail them out. And tone-deaf executives have been hauled before Congress to be scolded like schoolchildren for their misbehavior. Through it all, there is a sector of our economy that has remained above the fray – tech.

This may not be a great year for Silicon Valley, but it's a golden opportunity for the tech industry to make its case in Washington. Bailout free, the sector has what desperate policy-makers are now looking for: solutions.

Healthcare reform? Electronic health records are part of the solution. Energy and the environment? Smart grids and technologies make us more energy efficient. It wasn't a coincidence that when President Obama had his first meeting with CEOs, it was with the leaders of the tech industry. In a sea of black hats (Wall Street, automakers, banks, and insurance companies), the tech sector still wears white.

This hasn't always been the case. During the Bush years, the tech industry was viewed much like the A/V club in the eyes of the football team – they didn't get them and therefore largely ignored them. They weren't special. Now they are again. Granted, it's not quite to the level of the good old days of the late 1990s, when the Internet was new and the possibilities seemed limitless (remember “Dow 36,000”?).

But at a time when Americans are questioning the country's ability to remain the global economic leader, they can always fall back to the fact that when it comes to technology, the US still has the lion's share of compelling stories.

Now, the question becomes, what does the tech industry do with this newfound status in Washington? The challenge is, and has always been, that the industry does not speak with one voice. It's more like a kindergarten class with 22 5-year-olds.

Now the industry has to prove it's growing up. It has to present a united and compelling vision of what the economy should look like. It must be able to deliver the hard truth: that this recession is like a bad storm that has naturally pruned the weakest branches of our economy. That those old jobs aren't – and shouldn't be – coming back, and that we must invest in the jobs our current 12-year-olds will be doing in 10 years, not what our fathers and mothers
did a decade ago.

That's not an easy message to deliver, but it's one a well-respected industry must put forth. If tech wants that place at the table, it has to step up to the plate.

Tom Galvin is a partner at 463 Communications, a DC-based senior-level comms consultancy. He previously served as VP of corporate communications and government relations at VeriSign.

463 Communications, the Washington PR firm that represents Cisco Systems, VeriSign, the Consumer Electronics Association and other technology clients has formally joined with polling firm Zogby International to form Zogby463 -- an initiative that will track public opinions on a variety of topics pertaining to technology and the economy. The companies have been collaborating since 2005 on a range of strategic communications and opinion research projects for clients including the Tech CEO Council, Symantec, Skype, Dell, and IBM. "At the heart of every successful strategy is insightful data," 463 CEO Tom Galvin said. The joint venture will offer what Galvin called "evidence-based communications" that guide strategy decisions and drive and define policy debates.

To launch their partnership, 463 and Zogby hosted a Monday luncheon with remarks about U.S. innovation by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, longtime tech lobbyist Chris Caine, and Democratic campaign veteran turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur Donnie Fowler. Caine, who recently started his own consulting firm after working for IBM, warned there is a "deep under-appreciation" in the United States about how extensively and rapidly the world is changing. "I don't think we've focused enough in the executive branch and legislative branch in being the most welcoming environment" for a new generation of global citizens, he said. Fowler noted the majority of venture capitalist money still comes from the United States and this country continues to offer the best universities and graduate programs in the world.

Nearly one in three adults believe that if the Internet shut down for three days, it would have a “dramatic impact” on their lives, according to a new high-technology opinion poll of 3,030 adults. The poll, from Zogby International and 463 Communications, also found that 50% of adults think that America should “focus on high-tech and jobs in the service industry” rather than traditional jobs in manufacturing.

About seven in 10 U.S. residents believe the next great technology entrepreneur will come from somewhere else, according to a new poll.

Asked where the next Bill Gates will come from, 29 percent of respondents in a new Zogby International poll said the U.S., while 28 percent said India, 15 percent said China and 11 percent said Japan. But the poll, released Monday, also found 67 percent of U.S. residents saying they believe the economic, educational and societal conditions still exist in the U.S. for another entrepreneur like the Microsoft founder to emerge...

...The respondents of the Zogby poll, however, seemed to question U.S. lawmakers' understanding of technology. Asked whether the average 10-year-old or a member of Congress knew more about the Internet, 83 percent went with the 10-year-old, and only 9 percent sided with the lawmakers....

...The Zogby poll asked U.S. residents to predict when the U.S. would come out of the current recession. Thirty-two percent said the U.S. would be the first major economy out of the recession, while 43 percent said the U.S. could come out of it at the same time as the rest of the world does, and 14 percent said the U.S. would come out after other major economies.

Nearly six in 10 respondents believe internet video sites like YouTube required some form of regulation, but the group split almost evenly on whether that system should be more like the Federal Communications Commission’s regulation of broadcast television, or the self-imposed rating system devised by the Motion Picture Association of America. Just over 30 percent said they believed any regulation of internet video would be unconstitutional.

Broken down along party lines, 34 percent of Republicans oppose any kind of regulation, while 36 percent of Democrats prefer the voluntary ratings used by the film industry. Self-identified independents are even more strongly against regulation, with 41 percent opposing any ratings at all. But independents supporting content ratings are fairly evenly divided, with 29% favoring the movie system and 25% favoring the television system.

May 22, 2009

While posts will continue to (often sporadically) flow here, the busy writer of this fine Web log has increasingly turned to The Twitter to provide tech policy thoughts and bon mots while running from meeting to meeting.

But, even better than hearing from this old war horse, Twitter's simplicity has (finally!) gotten much of the rest of the 463 crew off their collective rear ends and out there opionating. Nearly all of us are contributing to the brand new official 463 Twitter feed. And a few of us also have our own personal feed to allow us to mix business, pleasure and the banal.

April 01, 2009

The White House today announced it has reached an accord with China to sell the Internet and its critical infrastructure to China for $350 billion. By 2010, the Internet’s root servers and .com and .net will be transferred to China, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Under the agreement, responsibility for oversight of ICANN, the technical coordinating body set up by the Commerce Department in 1998, will be transferred to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information. ICANN, which is based in Marina Del Ray, California, will relocate to Beijing in 2010 as well.

“This was a complicated negotiation but we feel comfortable that it will result in a win-win,” said Gibbs. “The United States gets an immediate windfall that will help us address our near-term budget shortfall, and going forward we are confident China will act as a responsible steward of the Internet.”

A Chinese MII official declined to comment on the negotiations, but referred reporters to a MII website that detailed the “harmonious changes that will be made to world Internet.” Among the changes proposed were the elimination of pornographic sites such as “PornoTube” and "TMZ", the website for "The Economist" and any reference to Rick Astley or "rickrolling."

Immediate reaction from the technology industry was cautious, but few were willing to comment on the record for fear of antagonizing the Chinese. “I, for one, welcome them,” said one technology CEO.

EU official Lenora Postameure said that while there was widespread resentment of U.S. control over the Internet, EU countries would be comfortable with China. “China has a better understanding of the role of business with Information and Communications Technologies, and will ensure that all multi-lateral stakeholders in government rightfully drive its future together,” said Postameure.

A Chinese official did hint at a deal with CNN personality Lou Dobbs to be a spokesperson for the new Internet order. This would seem to run contrary to his strong American protectionist stance taken nightly on his television show. However, a Dobbs' confidant who preferred not to be quoted said, "Who would you rather be a fake populist for? Three hundred million people? Or, 1.3 billion people who run the freakin' Internet?"

Former Sen. Ted Stevens has been appointed to serve as the liaison between the U.S. and Chinese government to facilitate the transfer of the Internet infrastructure. For more information on this story, go to remembertodayisapril1st.org.

The Caveat

The opinions on postings are of individual 463 Communications partners and employees. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of 463 Communications, the firm, or our clients. Comments will remain posted at the sole discretion of 463.